For my rent, I authorized my apartment management to take money directly out of my account on the first of the month. This means I no longer have to go to the post office to get a money order to pay the rent. I am a little anxious about this as I don’t like companies having direct access to my checking account, but so far – it has all worked out. A few times, they were even late on taking money out of my account. Since this is their fault, I never got charged a late fee.
As for my other bills, when possible, I use PayPal for payments. PayPal uses a credit card to cover the charges, and this allows me to not have direct access to my checking account. All of my bills that don’t use PayPal, I use the card that PayPal uses to pay those bills. This means that one of my credit cards pays all of my bills.
Then once a month, I log into that credit card site, and I pay the card off entirely. This assures that I do not have interest that accrues for paying my bills. I am able to pay the card off entirely because I budget, and I know how much has to be paid. I try to not carry cash unless I have to. And when I do, it is usually less than $50.